How do I generate multiple random lists for a portion of a larger list in Python? I keep getting duplicate lists

Try to put this line

item = random.sample(names, k=players)

inside the while loop:

while remaining_teams > 0:
    item = random.sample(names, k=players)
    print(item)
    remaining_teams = remaining_teams - 1

There is no need to check if remaining_teams is less than 0 because if it is zero it will never enter the loop so it won't get lower.

You can also just use a for loop:

import random

names = ["Tom", "Sam", "Jake", "McKenzie", "Sarah", "Devon", "Brice", "Caleb", "Mitchell", "Scott", "Nick", "Liz"]

teams = 4 # int(input("How many teams will there be? "))
players = 2 # int(input("How many players will each team have? "))

for i in range(teams):
    item = random.sample(names, k=players)
    names.remove(item[0])
    names.remove(item[1])
    print(item)

You just aren't ever re-sampling the names to construct a new team. When you have item = random.sample(names, k=players) outside the loop, that code is only going to run once, not every time you subsequently reference/print item. You should put it in the loop so that every team is a new sample of names. Also, you might want to remove names from the names list once they're added to a team (so players can't show up on multiple teams). You could do this with another simple for loop inside your while loop. Finally, the last break statement is unnecessary: the while loop will automatically stop when remaining_teams hits 0, so no need to check and break if its less than 1.

You could also check to make sure you have enough names to fill the teams you request (so that you don't have a runtime error if, for instance, 3 teams of 15 players are requested, but you only have 15 names).

Here are all those changes altogether:

import random

names = ["Tom", "Sam", "Jake", "McKenzie", "Sarah", "Devon", "Brice", "Caleb", "Mitchell", "Scott", "Nick", "Liz"]

teams = int(input("How many teams will there be? "))
players = int(input("How many players will each team have? "))

if teams * players > len(names):
  print("Not enough players")
  exit()

remaining_teams = teams

while remaining_teams > 0:
    team = random.sample(names, k=players)
    print(team)
    for player in team:
      names.remove(player)
    remaining_teams = remaining_teams - 1